Tuesday, April 17, 2007

CIL 2007 Official Kick-off and Keynote

At this morning’s conference kickoff, I learned that this CIL (2007) attracted a record 2061 conf attendees; that 48 states were represented (only the Dakotas were missing); and 12 countries were represented.

Lee Rainie, Pew Internet & American Life Project - http://www.pewinternet.org/ - presented the keynote “Web2.0: And What it Means to Libraries”.

He began with the reminder to us bloggers to publicize how much he loves librarians! But we know he’s a great library supporter, so no fears, Lee, we love you, too. He brought us immediately into the Web2.0 world with a very cute YouTube video that I hadn’t seen before – askaninja.com. Look it up!

As for the most important things that I took away from Lee’s presentation, here they are:

  • Being online is becoming more and more a part of daily life for everyone
  • We are broadening what we do online and what our expectations are for online sites – we now use the Internet (the 'net is always on via broadband) for entertainment and social activity – it’s much more than a research/info tool nowadays
  • Visual images are at least (if not more) important than text nowadays
  • Users expect to participate in (and help to create) their web experiences
  • All of these things are doubly true for today’s teens and young adults
  • Libraries have to recognize how things are changing and meet the challenges brought on by those changes

Lee covered – with some fascinating statistics about the topic – the hallmarks of web2.0 and the challenges it presents. He noted that web2.0 is characterized by:

  • web as platform
  • harnessing collective intelligence
  • Software above the level of single device
  • rich user experiences

[He mentioned a few sites to check out online: Upcoming.org & EVDB]

  • The number of people who use computers is almost identical to that of internet users (75%, 73% respectively) these days
  • 72% of adults use the internet, 90% of teens use it (double check my numbers at Pew, I might be off a digit on either of these)
  • More people are on broadband than ever & broadband users use the inet in dramatically diff. ways
  • Wireless connex growing & more people access the inet from more places than ever before
  • 50% have gone online from a library (200% growth in 4 years, I believe he said)
  • 43% of inet users just hang out online, browse for no particular purpose, the web is now entertaining as well as informational
  • 85% of young broadband users watch online videos, 62% have watched YouTube videos
  • People share more info online now – inet more social now

Hallmarks of Web2.0:

  1. people more willing to participate in online culture
  2. more people creating content / sharing info online (55% of online teens created profiles on a social network site, 20% of online adults have such profiles; 51% of young adult inet users have uploaded photos to the inet)
  3. more internet users are accessing the content created by others (46% of young inet users read blogs; 44% of young people seek info thru wikipedia; tend to have highest levels of education or are young people or are college students; most do not believe that it’s the be-all, end all of info; in fact, young people will turn to social networks for verification of Wikipedia info;)
  4. more users are sharing what they know & feel online (enabling youth to do things with your site – let them co-create in order to have them interested in your site; 33% of them have rated a person, product, service online; 32% have tagged content
  5. tens of thousands of internet users are contributing their know-how and computing resources to Internet projects (e.g., open source, grid computing, etc.)
  6. Americans are customizing their online experiences more and more using Web2.0 tools (among teens, 40% customized website; 50% part of listserv/specialty topic group; 25-33% subscribed to RSS feeds)

Pam Berger http://www.infosearcher.com/ – 5 challenges for libraries to deal with in Web2.0

  • Navigation: transition from linear to nonlinear format
  • Content – learning to see connections
  • Focus – practicing reflection & deep thinking; relaxation = new ideas, but how do we relax
  • Skepticism – learning to evaluate information
  • Ethical behavior – understanding the rules of cyberspace


No comments: